This week, let’s take a look at the divisional races in the National League. For each division, the average rank of each team is listed, along with the standard deviation for each team, which is a measure of how much variability there was for each team. The lower the deviation, the more agreement there is about that team’s place in the standings.
Over the last several weeks, it’s been our collective pleasure to meet with a few hundred readers at Pizza Feeds around the country. I want to express my thanks to everyone who’s taken the time and effort to come out and talk baseball, and to those special guests who gave generously of their time to…
I ran across a piece at the Baltimore Sun Web site, read through it, then spent two hours on an exercise bike and at the driving range to try to calm down. It hasn’t worked, so I want to run through this piece, and begin to scratch the surface of what’s wrong in Baltimore.
I was going to write a column this week that summarized some of the stuff from the NorCal Pizza Feeds. Actually, I finished the column, had it ready to go, and was planning to send it to Joe for editing Thursday morning. Then, after checking out the local papers for a few clubs, I ran…
There are a lot of things I want to get to, some from the news, some from an overflowing mailbag, so let’s just jump right in
There are a lot of things I want to get to, some from the news, some from an overflowing mailbag, so let’s just jump right in: Derek Bell and "Operation Shutdown" Reporters salivate over a guy like Derek Bell. In case you’re the one person who missed it, Pirates outfielder Bell threatened to instigate something…
In general, it’s a bad thing if you can associate an umpire’s name with his work.
In general, it’s a bad thing if you can associate an umpire’s name with his work. It’s one thing if the umpire is Doug Harvey, and you’re talking about his "Rules of the Game" segment on the old Game of the Week, back when that term actually meant something. (Something horrible.) It’s still another when…
I dread the Winter Olympics. In their current form, they embody and promote ideals and practices that I find, for lack of a better term, pathetic. I find subjective sports to be among the most offensive ideas around, and, as you might expect, I find figure skating, a darling of network coverage since Peggy Fleming,…
One of the best things about creating and growing Baseball Prospectus is that I get to work with people I greatly respect, and with whom I sometimes fervently disagree. Yesterday’s Daily Prospectus contained a paragraph that drew my attention immediately, and made me bounce to the keyboard to craft a response. I hope that Joe…
For those of you who may have missed the Associated Press article, Representative John Conyers (D-Mich.) has called for the resignation of Allan H. "Bud" Selig as the commissioner of baseball. Conyers is apparently upset about a bridge loan for $3 million received by the Milwaukee Brewers in 1995. The loan was made to the…
John Burkett‘s agent, Tommy Tanzer, announced that his client has accepted a two-year contract from the Boston Red Sox worth $5.5 million annually. In and of itself, this isn’t particularly interesting. What is interesting is the fashion in which events transpired. Player representatives and attorneys are nervous about the state of the market for free…
I bleed green and gold. Even when faced with ’70s crowds that made a late-season Milwaukee road trip to Montreal look Woodstockian, I have always loved the Oakland A’s. There’s no rational reason for it, and a careful examination of the DSM-IV may well have my mug shot. My mom and dad took me to…
Wade through the stream of codeine-affected consciousness with me today: From Peter Gammons’s ESPN column, Saturday, Nov. 10th: "Players and their lawyers don’t understand this, but the fact is that the national economy has to have a dramatic impact on the market. Before this week, club marketing offices have been told to expect a downturn…
The contraction drums are beating. Just recently, you may have seen this trial balloon: Contraction would begin to reverse the damage done by two dumb and dumber expansions that cost nearsighted owners many times more than the relatively few pennies they pocketed. — Peter Gammons, Oct. 26, 2001. This is really a two-part statement, so…
I’m a marketing snob. I’m over-educated on the topic, have too high an opinion of my own marketing skills, read and enjoy haughty, peer-reviewed journals, and tend to be way too quick to criticize what I perceive as shortcomings in the planning and execution of others when it comes to marketing. I have a relatively…